1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a safety seat, and more particularly, to a safety seat with a releasable air trapping enclosure that permits an infant user to breathe for a few minutes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Several designs for a safety seat have been designed in the past. None of them, however, includes an enclosure that can be readily released to cover a child to entrap within the enclosure a sufficient amount of air. This permits a child to inhale air several times before the air becomes vitiated and delays the entry of water in his/her lungs while attempting retrieval from a body of water.
Applicant believes that the closest reference corresponds to U.S. patent publication No. 2006/0087161 (Filgueiras) of Apr. 27, 2006. However, it differs from the present invention because even though a safety bag system is disclosed, it lacks the winding mechanism that permits a user to pull the bag maintaining sufficient tension to permit the user to enclose the child. One end of the bag is kept tied to the winding mechanism. The positioning of the stretchable member 45 in the present invention also obviates several problems and saves precious seconds in the deployment of the device. Prior to the present invention, the applicant had problems with the deployment of the bag. Also, after the child is removed from the body of water, the present invention retracts the bag inside, helping the user to liberate the child from possible suffocation.
One of the related prior art references is U.S. Pat. No. 4,502,157 for a protective enclosure having self-contained air supply. However, the enclosure is not water tight nor designed to entrap a significant amount of air to temporarily extend the breathing time of a user in a body of water. Much less does it suggest its use in conjunction with an infant seat to permit the enclosure of the seat assembly and the infant for their ready retrieval from a dangerous condition while giving the infant precious extra minutes to breathe.
Other references describing the closest subject matter provide for a number of more or less complicated features that fail to solve the problem in an efficient and economical way. None of these references suggest the novel features of the present invention.